Journal of Sacred Work

Days 242-243 Tag You're It!

Remember playing tag when you were a kid? What a fun game that sparked squeals of laughter and exuberant bursts of energy. Recently, I watched a PBS documentary that highlighted the salient experiences of people living with autism spectrum. Each person interviewed shared what it is like for them living in a “neurotypical” world.   Their deeply personal insights revealed that it is anything but typical when trying to navigate everyday life.

People with autism may travel to the beat of a different drum but this does not diminish their special gifts that illuminates the darkness. One man’s story made a particular impression on me as he described his remembrances of the elementary school game of tag. While kids ran around carefree  he stood on the sidelines just watching his classmates play. No one ever tried to chase or tag him.

One day out of boredom he decided to leave the gym. His teacher followed after him and said, “Come back, you are supposed get out there and frolic with the other kids”. Perplexed, he recalled spending a great deal of time afterwards thinking about the game. Admittedly, he probably contemplated it more than others might consider. He concluded that although one tries to avoid getting tagged it is really pretend. Secretly you hope that you will be noticed, chased and tagged, you’re it!

Over time, he came to realize that tag you're it happens whenever we connect with life. Each time we listen to a gorgeous piece of music, watch a sunset, taste something spectacular, experience intimacy, or connect with another soul... you are it.

Personally, I love the evolution of this man’s experience from feeling disconnected as a child to discovering a beautifully atypical analogy in grasping what it means to be here. 

Now, tag YOU are it!

~Liz Sorensen Wessel

Dedicated to Reajie

Days 237-241 - Your Energy

   Think about Christmas (or vacation.) Can you feel your energy rising?

   Think about work? What is happening to your energy now?

   Where attention goes, energy flows. It is one of the most powerful notions I've every come across. Attitude determines energy. 

   Physics teaches you that things that are still want to stay still and things that are moving want to keep moving. This is inertia and momentum.

   It takes significant energy to put a still thing into motion. 

   This is as true in your life as it is in physics. Has your life become stagnant? Is your workplace stuck in an old, failed pattern?

   What is the kind of energy it takes to get things going? The strategy is clear through a few basic steps that are crucial to change. 

   When there is a traumatic event, these steps may be compressed and concentrated into one life-changing occurrence - a serious accident, a terminal diagnosis, or something joyful like the birth or winning the lottery.

  But, most change is gradual and requires persistence.

  First, notice your energy. Are you aware of an unhappy life pattern?

   Do you accept that this is something you can and do need to change? If you do not, then stop right here because nothing changes unless you prioritize the need.

   Third, create a picture of what you want your new momentum to look like? What would your life be if you changed your pattern?

   Finally, take action. Try out the change. 

   These ideas are clear and very hard they to implement. It takes enormous energy to change old inertia into new momentum.

   If you want to live Love not fear start building your new momentum today - and watch your life improve.

-Erie Chapman

Days 235-237 International Caregiver Day

"Give Your Hands to Service and Your Hearts to Love" ~Mother Teresa

August 26 is Mother Teresa’s birthday. What better way to honor her memory than to commemorate this day as International Caregiver Day! On August 26^th Caregiver’s from around the world will celebrate her contributions to humankind in a spirit of love and reconciliation.This tradition began four years ago when Erie Chapman invited others to join together to honor the good works and compassion of caregivers. 

Who are the caregivers of this world?

“Whenever need is met with a loving response the encounter is sacred” (Erie Chapman). It begins in our homes and how we care for our family members. It expands out to the people we work alongside, our neighbors,  encounters with friends, strangers and our relationships with all of life; all beings and how we live in relationship with Mother Earth. 

 In the work place this has nothing to do with job titles or whether or not you are a clinician. It has everything to do with "authentic intention" and "attention". “Where attention goes, energy flows” (Erie Chapman). The sacred manefests when we offer our full presence to the person before us with a heart of loving service.

Perhaps, I am the person filling supply orders that will be taken to a patient’s home. Ever mindful of the person who is ill, vulnerable and in need, and the importance that he or she receives the correct medical supplies at the correct time, is a loving response.

We are all caregivers one to another. Every encounter is an opportunity for the sacred to enter. What we say and do does have a ripple out effect that touches the lives of others, in ways we may never even know or can even imagine.

May each of you become the wellspring of compassion as you reach out in care

May soothing words find a home in you

May tenderness bless you as you reach out to comfort body, mind and spirit

When difficult decisions confront you may wisdom inspire you

May patience keep vigil with you and peace of mind calm you

May your heart find a song to sing even when you are weary

 

~Above Blessing shared by my friend, Doreen Chesebro, written by a Sister friend of a Sister…

 Contributed by Liz Sorensen Wessel

Artwork by ~liz

Days 230-234 - Making Things Make Sense

   When a terminal illness killed one of my cousins recently I found myself pondering the old question, "Why would cancer take such a dear person from this earth?" It doesn't make sense.

   Subconsciously I retain the ridiculous notion that deadly afflictions will only touch "bad" people. Shouldn't kind people be immune from life's punishments?

   The fact that justice sometimes prevails tricks us into thinking that it always will - that we can make the world make sense - that everyone will eventually reap their just reward. 

   Nope.

   So much of life is an abstract painting filled with "tricks." Time is a trick. Reality itself is a trick. Fairness is often an illusion. Does my photo portray a torch or a drift of hair?

   Hospital hallways are filled with the language of "life-saving" surgeries and treatments. But, no caregiver can save you from death. They can only delay its arrival. 

   Artists help you understand time, reality and "life-saving" as tricks. Movies are populated with ghosts. The surrealist painters startle you with images of trains coming out of fireplaces or a sky raining men in bowler hats. Mannequins can deceive us for a moment. 

   In some ways, life is nothing more than a joke and we are fools for not recognizing this. Take your relationships and your work seriously but never yourself. 

   One wag wrote that what doesn't seem fair is that Elvis is dead and all his impersonators are alive.

   But, of course, to function in the world you have to try and make sense of it. The key is to recognize that, ultimately, you can never make things make sense.  

   Grieve loss, celebrate life, and simultaneously understand that nothing is eternal except the present - and the love that can inform our lives if we will let it.

-Erie Chapman  

photos coprtight erie chapma 2013

Days 228-229 "May Your Spirit Soar"

May your spirit soar throughout the vast cathedral of your being.

May your mind whirl joyful cartwheels of creativity.

May your heart sing sweet lullabies of timelessness.

                                                            -Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Today, as I send forth this blessing of abundance I am struck by the paradox of life. You know that feeling; that sensation of a big hole in your heart. In our youth we feel the exuberance of possibilities with the vast horizon of life before us. As we move along on our  journey we experience the continual turning of life. Chapters end and new ones begin. Over time, a poignancy arises in the culmination of  perceived loss.

Perhaps, our busyness can distract us from being present to life’s impermanence. We try to hold on tightly to safety with the false security of never endings. Yet, something deeper in us knows there is value in acknowledging what is.

I scribbled down a few quotes from books that have been my companion in times past. It has been a few years since I happened upon them but they still hold special meaning.

"As we come more into understanding that working with the dying is a way of working on ourselves, we find that working on ourselves means dying…letting go of the separate self, of the every foothold and gesture that maintains our identity apart from others and our original nature, our profound oneness with all that is. "                     -Stephen Levine

I received a call from a friend this week who is experiencing a painful conflict. As I listened and later reflected on the dilemma I realized that the players and circumstances may be different but we all experience a similar distress at one time or another. When we drop the story line  that vulnerable hole in our heart is a common  human experience. We are in this together.

"In the beginning was God and God was without form. For God to have form there must be duality- a positive and a negative charge. God created light and dark. The passive dark had no need to express, but the active light did, the part of God that wanted to express and create. The light is unconditional love; the dark is the space to receive it. Once we were created we got attached to the form and forgot the formless. We forgot that God could not express without us. Fear, the illusion that we are separate from that which created and encompasses us, prevents us from remembering we are God and love in form. When we remember we experience no separation between God in form and God formless; we are both."                      ~Debra Duda

  Perhaps, we are here to help each other remember.

"May our spirit's soar  throughout the vast cathedral of our being"...

on  the form and formless wing's of God's Love.

 Contributed by Liz  Sorensen Wessel

Polyprint watercolor  by ~liz

Days 223-227 - The "grand holiday of the mind"

   Towards the end of "Manhattan" Woody Allen's character lies on a sofa recording things that make life worthwhile. Mozart's "Jupiter" symphony and Cezanne's pears make his list. 

   Where do you turn for what Stephen Dunn calls your "grand holiday of the mind?" What musings make your life worthwhile?

   Sunday morning brought one of those surprises that populate the landscape of joy and startle the soul. A hummingbird dropped into my backyard and glanced over at me as if to say, "Isn't it fun that I can stand on air?"

   In "Meaninglessness" Dunn wrote: "The definition of beauty, Valery said, is easy;/ it's what leads you to desperation."  

   Where's the comfort in that? Beauty's embrace fans a wake of desperation. Her poignancy hurts.

   Beauty brings soul-tears. The hummingbird arrives and then sails away. 

   The photo I took of two brothers is one of my favorites. Those boys are gone, replaced by the fine adults they have become. 

   "He'd learn, but forgotten," Dunn writes, "the pointlessness of seeking; he was, after all, alive,/  and desire often sent him aching/ toward some same mistake."  

   Perhaps, the "mistake" is not in Beauty but in seeking her as if, once found, we can trap her. Letting her arrive, noticing her, accepting her departure may help you understand another kind of Beauty called serenity.

   Beauty is holding a sparrow - too tight and she will die, to0 casually she will fly away. Still, we know we must let her go.

   Beauty simultaneously affirms your heart and pierces it. Living Love on this earth with passion and commitment takes courage. Yet, Love is our only salvation. 

   We are, "after all, alive."

-Erie Chapman

Days 221-222 Move

I listened to a thought-provoking interview with Krista Tippet, ONBeing as she interviewed psychiatrist, Bessel van de Kolk. He spoke of an experience early in his career, which led him to his fascination and research in trauma work. Years ago, a veteran needed help because he was having wartime nightmares and could not sleep. Bessel prescribed some medication for the man to help relieve his bad dreams. A couple of weeks later, the veteran returned to see him and he asked him if the medication helped. The veteran said, “I could not to take them. I need to honor the memories of my friends who died; I am a living memorial to them”.

Interestingly, Bessel’s research has shown that human memory is a sensory experience, meaning that a person who has suffered a trauma will have a vivid memory of details such as the silhouette of a person, or the pattern of the wall paper, etc. Personally, I sometimes feel that I carry around some residual sensations from early life experiences in every cell of my body. Bessel's research shows that body work, such as yoga in which the mind holds a focused intention on breathing coordinated with movement has a very positive healing effect.

So many of us live in our heads and are cut off from paying attention to our bodies. How often do we ignore our body when we are tired but just keep pushing ourselves? Do we stay home to rest when we are ill? When fatigue grabs us, it is all too easy to let self-care fall away as inertia swoops in. Computers are alluring aren’t they? I don’t know about you, but I can wile away my time endlessly.

Well, I’ve been listening a little more to what my body has to say and it is telling me that it wants to move. I started taking yoga classes a couple of nights a week and although I find it challenging, my body loves the attention.

We can start really small. A walk outdoors can shift the minds endless thinking to soak up blessings from the sun or to catch our aliveness on a breeze. Today, experience the joy of movement, whether washing the car or walking your dog, enjoy the feel of your body in motion.

~liz Sorensen Wessel

Artwork by ~liz

Days 219-220 - Anger & Compassion

   It was a random comment from one of the television psychologist but it caught my ear. "Anger blocks compassion," she said.

   Imagine how many times you have experienced this. In the middle of frustration over something you think someone else has done to you or someone else rage may rise up. Suddenly, your ability to see the other point of view shuts down.

   These minor tragedies have plagued all of our lives as we rant at another never appreciating that they may have an excellent explanation for their actions or comments. For example, as you know, anger is an expression of fear. The fear is loss of control or, more likely, a feeling of not being heard. Instead of backing up and, literally, taking a few breaths, our egos rush forward and escalate the attack.

   Whether it's in a domestic situation or in the middle of a work setting, nobody benefits from anger, do they? Supposedly, it is good to vent. But, does someone else always have to be the victim of our outbursts?

   One of the hardest practices of  Radical Loving Care is adopting an attitude of grace amid another's anger. When you can do this, the other person's frustration may dissipate. If not, only Love can help you sustain the winged grace you and I need to live Love.

   Grace and gratitude - two of God's sweetest gifts.

-Reverend Erie Chapman

Days 216-218 "The Promised Land" of Perfect Health?

"Make it plain [to children] from the very beginning that all living is relationship." - Aldous Huxley

    What do you want from medicine? What if doctors could cure everything - including mental illness. Who could turn down such a Faustian deal? 

   "There are people today who will live to be one-hundred-fifty years old," my son-in-law told me awhile back. If he's right, won't there be people living to be two hundred and more in the generations beyond? My century-old mother (pictured with her "little" brother) would be a youngster in such a society.

   It's fun to imagine a promised land of perfect health in which everyone is free of pain and lives a long time. The pathway to that, however, is strewn with deep threats to our humanity.

   In Brave New World (1932) Aldous Huxley created a frightening vision of our life five hundred years from now. It turns out, many of his imaginings are already foreseeable including human cloning and the development of tranquilizers (he called his "Soma.") 

   His story is of people programmed into different classes from drones that handle drudgery to an over-privileged elite. His vision is deeply pessimistic. The protagonist, depressed by the absence of humanity, commits suicide.

     The only pathway to "curing everything" is through medicine's ability to replace all broken body parts and eliminate all diseases - systemic or localized. Our only remaining threats would be murders and natural disasters. Perhaps those risks will be reduced as well because the difference between us and robots would be nominal. 

   What a life. 

   In an earth free of pain what happens to compassion? If no one is suffering or grieving where is the need for it? Nobody would need a compassionate caregiver since medicine would be reduced entirely to mechanics. 

   Similarly, when drugs can alter our brain chemistry so that everyone is "happy" what is to prevent us from becoming a population so self satisfied and egocentric that we just sit around? In that kind of society who would care?

   Compassion lives at the heart of humanity as we know it. It is the gift of being alive and the core of Love. It is the source of our creativity and our ability to appreciate the arts. 

   The Promised Land is not perfect health. Instead, it is a life wrapped in the arms of a Love  - a Love that enriches life and informs its most sacred expressions - our relationships. 

-Erie Chapman

Days 214-215 On the Threshold of a Dream

 

May my mind come alive today
To the invisible geography
That invites me to new frontiers,
To break the dead shell of yesterdays,
To risk being disturbed and changed.'
~ John O’Donohue

It was a warm summer night in Vermont and we were home visiting family. My sons, who were teenagers at the time, slept in make shift beds in the living room. John has always been a vivid dreamer. He has been known to jump up out of bed quite animated while sleeping. That night he had a nightmare and began screaming and thrashing about as he tried to fight his way out of the bed sheets entanglement. His screams caused his brother Lee to wake with a fright and he too began yelling at the sheer terror of the moment. The rest of the household promptly jolted awake. I ran down the stairs with my heart bounding out of my chest. Once I realized what was happening I woke John with the reassurance that all was okay. Whew! What a scare but now when we recollect that night we all share a good belly laugh. Not exactly the kind of dream one might hope to manifest but life is full of surprises.

I recall listening to a chaplain tell about her first job at a hospital in Manhattan.  She described  feeling frozen with fear as she walked up to an entrance , hesitated and stared at the door. Meanwhile a nurse came by and kindly asked, “Do you want me to push the button for you?” "No" she said, and proceeded to press it and with a big swoosh the automatic doors opened as she stepped into the chaos of the emergency room.  When she crossed that threshold she knew instantly that she was exactly where she was meant to be.

John O'Donohue offers some lovely insights on honoring life's thresholds.

"At any time you can ask yourself: At which threshold am I now standing? At this time in my life, what am I leaving? Where am I about to enter? What is preventing me from crossing my next threshold? What gift would enable me to do it? A threshold is not a simple boundary; it is a frontier that divides two different territories, rhythms, and atmospheres. Indeed, it is a lovely testimony to the fullness and integrity of an experience or a stage of life that it intensifies toward the end into a real frontier that cannot be crossed without the heart being passionately engaged and woken up. At this threshold a great complexity of emotion comes alive: confusion, fear, excitement, sadness, hope. This is one of the reasons such vital crossings were always clothed in ritual. It is wise in your own life to be able to recognize and acknowledge the key thresholds; to take your time; to feel all the varieties of presence that accrue there; to listen inward with complete attention until you hear the inner voice calling you forward. The time has come to cross. "

-John O'Donohue

To Bless the Space Between Us(New York: Double Day Publishing

Contributed by Liz Sorensen Wessel

Mandala Artwork by ~liz